A sympathetic portrayal of a typical 11-year-old trying to fit in, with a bit of Korean flair.
Exploring her Korean heritage for a school project leads Canadian fifth-grader Krista Kim into new territory with family, friends, and food.
Being the sole Korean girl in her class seems to have kept Krista out of the popular-girl group. Luckily, her best friend, Jason, who is white, has been by her side since preschool. He even likes to eat kimchi! When one of the cool girls surprisingly extends a birthday-party invitation, everyone encourages Krista to attend. Even her snobby older sister, Tori, reconstructs and adapts a traditional Korean dress, called a hanbok, so Krista will look K-pop fashionable. Encouraged by her sister and grandmother, Krista begins changing to fit into the popular crowd. As the story progresses in first person, Krista realizes she has been given conflicting advice from her loved ones. Tori helps her dress for success, but that attracts unwanted attention. Her blunt and opinionated grandmother, who favors Tori, pushes Krista to step out of character by wearing makeup and more-feminine clothing. Meanwhile, the person who knows her best, Jason, keeps floating farther and farther away. Author Ahn writes authentically about the struggle of assimilation while maintaining cultural tradition in a mostly white elementary school. Krista is not a vibrant heroine, but her struggles with identity and friendship will nonetheless resonate.
A sympathetic portrayal of a typical 11-year-old trying to fit in, with a bit of Korean flair. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77260-063-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
A richly atmospheric page-turner—readers will eagerly anticipate the forthcoming sequel.
Young Seren Rhys stands on the cusp of a new life. Unfortunately for her, the train to her new life is late.
Following the death of her aunt, who saved her from her 12-year stay at the orphanage, she receives word that her godfather, Capt. Arthur Jones, will take her in. Seren spends her wait dreaming of the Jones family and their surely bustling, welcoming manor, Plas-y-Fran in Wales. An encounter with a mysterious man and his more mysterious wrapped parcel (containing the eponymous mechanical bird) leaves Seren reeling, and the mysteries multiply when she arrives at Plas-y-Fran. The place is shuttered and cold, nearly deserted but for a few fearful, oppressively unforthcoming servants. The captain and his wife are away; of their young son, Tomos, there is neither sign nor sound. With the Crow as her only, if reluctant, ally, Seren soon finds herself enmeshed in mayhem and magic that may prove lethal. In her characteristic style, Fisher crafts an elaborate fantasy from deceptively simple language. Seren is a sharp, saucy narrator whose constant puzzlement at others’ consternation over her impertinence provides running amusement. Supporting characters are fascinating if ambiguous players, not so much poorly drawn as poorly revealed, perhaps casualties of the quick pace. The deadened manor, however, provides the perfect backdrop for preternatural forces. Characters are presumed white.
A richly atmospheric page-turner—readers will eagerly anticipate the forthcoming sequel. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1491-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions.
An isolated class of misfits and a teacher on the edge of retirement are paired together for a year of (supposed) failure.
Zachary Kermit, a 55-year-old teacher, has been haunted for the last 27 years by a student cheating scandal that has earned him the derision of his colleagues and killed his teaching spirit. So when he is assigned to teach the Self-Contained Special Eighth-Grade Class—a dumping ground for “the Unteachables,” students with “behavior issues, learning problems, juvenile delinquents”—he is unfazed, as he is only a year away from early retirement. His relationship with his seven students—diverse in temperament, circumstance, and ability—will be one of “uncomfortable roommates” until June. But when Mr. Kermit unexpectedly stands up for a student, the kids of SCS-8 notice his sense of “justice and fairness.” Mr. Kermit finds he may even care a little about them, and they start to care back in their own way, turning a corner and bringing along a few ghosts from Mr. Kermit’s past. Writing in the alternating voices of Mr. Kermit, most of his students, and two administrators, Korman spins a narrative of redemption and belief in exceeding self-expectations. Naming conventions indicate characters of different ethnic backgrounds, but the book subscribes to a white default. The two students who do not narrate may be students of color, and their characterizations subtly—though arguably inadequately—demonstrate the danger of preconceptions.
Funny and endearing, though incomplete characterizations provoke questions. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256388-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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